3 ms·

PPC is far from dead. You can buy brand-new POWER9 workstations with up to 44 cores (with SMT4 for 176 threads) from Raptor Computer Systems. They are also abou

PPC is far from dead. You can buy brand-new POWER9 workstations with up to 44 cores (with SMT4 for 176 threads) from Raptor Computer Systems. They are also about as open as a modern computer can be with board schematics included with every system and only one component with closed firmware (the BCM5719 network controller, which is currently being reverse-engineered so an open firmware can be developed).

mromanuk 7y ago
Wow, didn’t know that, amazing. What is the main use of those machines?
- MrRadar 7y ago
  They are primarily intended for people who need lots of threads for high-end workstation uses (see Phoronix's benchmarks[1]), people who want open computers (whether for security/auditability or ideological reasons), or just people who want something different from the mainstream. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=power9-threadripper-core9&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=power9-t...
  - andai 7y ago
    Found the store! https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html
- classichasclass 7y ago
  The Talos II I'm typing this reply on is just my regular workstation. I have a dual-4, which is 32 threads, and it runs Fedora. Most things work just fine and it's a very nice daily driver. I'll probably upgrade it to a dual-8 in the near future for even more parallel goodness. I also have a Blackbird, which does streaming video in the home theatre and is also a test system. It's a single-4, but it can take an 8-core part if desired.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    With that kind of hardware, is hardware decoding and encoding of media a possibility? A DLNA server with hardware transcoding is something I've been thinking about recently.
    - MrRadar 7y ago
      You can use AMD graphics cards with their open-source drivers. I'm not sure how well hardware-accelerated video works with them but it should work the same as it does on x86 Linux. Multimedia is probably one of the weaker areas for Power since there's so little focus on writing Altivec SIMD code for the platform from the larger open-source multimedia community (most of their focus is understandably on x86 and ARM), though that wouldn't impact hardware en/decoding.
  - gjs278 7y ago
    what browser do you use? can it compile chromium?
mritun 7y ago
Nonsense. PowerPC in old PowerMac and modern POWER 9 have about as much in common as Pentium Pro and a modern Xeon! PowerPC is a dead platform, POWER9 is not - but they are not the same!
- classichasclass 7y ago
  I'm not sure that's an apt comparison. If you were saying that 32-bit PPC is dead, then the answer is probably yes at least in general computing, though there are still lots of 32-bit PowerPC parts in embedded systems. However, 64-bit PowerPC systems have substantially more in common with "big" POWER. The G5, which was clearly positioned as a member of the PowerPC family (PPC970) but descended from the POWER4, would be the classic example.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  PowerPC is dead for the larger market but sticks around in specialty markets. Mainly NXP (formerly Freescale): https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/power-architecture-processors:POWER-ARCHITECTURE https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers... Also, the separation kernels that met NSA's highest standards of security initially targeted that for cross-selling into aerospace market. They buy a good chunk of PPC for some reason. Example that was among first certified with data on what was expected: https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-178b.html https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-17...

mromanuk 7y ago

Wow, didn’t know that, amazing. What is the main use of those machines?

MrRadar 7y ago
They are primarily intended for people who need lots of threads for high-end workstation uses (see Phoronix's benchmarks[1]), people who want open computers (whether for security/auditability or ideological reasons), or just people who want something different from the mainstream. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=power9-threadripper-core9&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=power9-t...
- andai 7y ago
  Found the store! https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html
classichasclass 7y ago
The Talos II I'm typing this reply on is just my regular workstation. I have a dual-4, which is 32 threads, and it runs Fedora. Most things work just fine and it's a very nice daily driver. I'll probably upgrade it to a dual-8 in the near future for even more parallel goodness. I also have a Blackbird, which does streaming video in the home theatre and is also a test system. It's a single-4, but it can take an 8-core part if desired.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  With that kind of hardware, is hardware decoding and encoding of media a possibility? A DLNA server with hardware transcoding is something I've been thinking about recently.
  - MrRadar 7y ago
    You can use AMD graphics cards with their open-source drivers. I'm not sure how well hardware-accelerated video works with them but it should work the same as it does on x86 Linux. Multimedia is probably one of the weaker areas for Power since there's so little focus on writing Altivec SIMD code for the platform from the larger open-source multimedia community (most of their focus is understandably on x86 and ARM), though that wouldn't impact hardware en/decoding.
- gjs278 7y ago
  what browser do you use? can it compile chromium?

mritun 7y ago

Nonsense. PowerPC in old PowerMac and modern POWER 9 have about as much in common as Pentium Pro and a modern Xeon! PowerPC is a dead platform, POWER9 is not - but they are not the same!

classichasclass 7y ago
I'm not sure that's an apt comparison. If you were saying that 32-bit PPC is dead, then the answer is probably yes at least in general computing, though there are still lots of 32-bit PowerPC parts in embedded systems. However, 64-bit PowerPC systems have substantially more in common with "big" POWER. The G5, which was clearly positioned as a member of the PowerPC family (PPC970) but descended from the POWER4, would be the classic example.
nickpsecurity 7y ago
PowerPC is dead for the larger market but sticks around in specialty markets. Mainly NXP (formerly Freescale): https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/power-architecture-processors:POWER-ARCHITECTURE https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers... Also, the separation kernels that met NSA's highest standards of security initially targeted that for cross-selling into aerospace market. They buy a good chunk of PPC for some reason. Example that was among first certified with data on what was expected: https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-178b.html https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-17...